Hong Kong Chief Executive Donald Tsang (
Tsang said that democracy, if taken to the extreme, could spark scenes reminiscent of the disastrous decade-long violent purge of capitalist influence, which tore the country apart.
Tsang is in charge of the process to eventually introduce universal suffrage into the former British colony.
The backlash over the comments, made during an interview to promote his annual policy address, which skirted around the issue of democratic reform, forced the 63-year-old into the apology.
"I am very sorry that I made an inappropriate remark concerning the Cultural Revolution during a radio interview and I wish to retract that remark," he said in a statement issued on Saturday, in what is believed to be his first public apology since taking office.
"Hong Kong people treasure democracy and hope to implement universal suffrage as soon as possible. I share the same aspirations," he said.
Tsang's initial comments were made during a radio interview on local broadcaster RTHK.
"If you go to the extreme [of democracy] you have the Cultural Revolution, for instance, in China. Then people take everything into their hands, then you cannot govern the place," he said.
Challenged by the interviewer on whether the purge under communist leadership was in fact an example of democracy, Tsang said: "It was people taking power into their own hands. This is what we mean by democracy."
Universal suffrage was promised to Hong Kong when it was handed back to China from colonial power Britain in 1997, but no specific timetable was established for its introduction.
Tsang won the "election" for the post of chief executive earlier this year against a pro-democracy candidate, but the vote was limited to a body of around 800 business and industrial elites, most of whom are pro-Beijing.
A consultation exercise on when to introduce elections for both the chief executive and the legislature was completed this week and Tsang said he would make recommendations to Beijing once he had studied the findings.
Debate is raging in the city over when full elections should take place. Pro-democrats are calling for democratic elections in 2012, but it is believed Beijing hopes to postpone democratic reforms in Hong Kong until 2017 or later.
The Cultural Revolution began in 1966, when Communist chief Mao Zedong (
Students and workers, who became his "Red Guards," were empowered to hound millions across the country for perceived ideological impurity, leading to many Chinese fleeing, often to Hong Kong.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS